Apollo, Moon-landing project conducted by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the 1960s and ’70s. The Apollo program was announced in May 1961, but the choice among competing techniques for achieving a Moon landing and return was not resolved until considerable further study. In the method ultimately employed, a powerful launch vehicle (Saturn V rocket) placed a 50-ton spacecraft in a lunar trajectory. Several Saturn launch vehicles and accompanying spacecraft were built. The Apollo spacecraft were supplied with rocket power of their own, which allowed them to brake on approach to the Moon and go into a lunar orbit. They also were able to release a component of the spacecraft, the Lunar Module (LM), carrying its own rocket power, to land two astronauts on the Moon and bring them back to the lunar orbiting Apollo craft.

Major elements of the U.S. Apollo program, showing the Saturn V launch vehicle and configurations …

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Liftoff and flight to the Moon of Apollo 11 with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and …

NASA

The first manned Apollo flight was delayed by a tragic accident, a fire that broke out in the Apollo 1 spacecraft during a ground rehearsal on January 27, 1967, killing all three astronauts. On October 11, 1968, following several unmanned Earth-orbit flights, Apollo 7 made a 163-orbit flight carrying a full crew of three astronauts. Apollo 8 carried out the first step of manned lunar exploration; from Earthorbit it was injected into a lunar trajectory, completed lunar orbit, and returned safely to Earth. Apollo 9 carried out a prolonged mission in Earth orbit to check out the LM. Apollo 10 journeyed to lunar orbit and tested the LM to within 15.2 km (50,000 feet) of the Moon’s surface. Apollo 11, in July 1969, climaxed the step-by-step procedure with a lunar landing; on July 20 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon’s surface.

Perhaps the most famous of all space films, these clips document the arrival of the first human …

NASA

The farside of the Moon, photographed during the Apollo 11 mission, 1969.

NASA

Lunar craters and the lunar module Intrepid as seen from the Apollo 12 command module …

Apollo 13, launched in April 1970, suffered an accident caused by an explosion in an oxygen tank but returned safely to Earth. Remaining Apollo missions carried out extensive exploration of the lunar surface, collecting 382 kg (842 pounds) of Moon rocks and installing many instruments for scientific research, such as the solar wind experiment, and the seismographic measurements of the lunar surface. Apollo 17, the final flight of the program, took place in December 1972. In total, 12 American astronauts walked on the Moon during the six successful lunar landing missions of the Apollo program.

An overview of Apollo 11’s landing on the Moon, including the continuing scientific study of the …

*Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed on Jan. 27, 1967, in a test for the first Apollo mission. This mission was originally called Apollo 204 but was redesignated Apollo 1 as a tribute to the astronauts. Numbering of the Apollo missions began with the fourth subsequent unmanned test flight, Apollo 4. Apollo 5 and 6 were also unmanned flights. There was no Apollo 2 or 3.

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...was launched, again by the Soviet Union, for a one-orbit journey around Earth on April 12, 1961. Within 10 years of that first human flight, American astronauts walked on the surface of the Moon. Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Edwin (“Buzz”) Aldrin made the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969. A total of 12 Americans on six separate Apollo missions set foot on the Moon...

NASA conducted many in-house research-and-development projects at its numerous space centres. The final development and production of flight hardware for the subsequent Apollo program, however, was carried out by a few prime contractors and elaborate networks of subcontractors and suppliers in virtually every part of the United States. For example, Grumman Aircraft produced the Lunar Modules,...

...pioneered human Earth-orbital flight in April 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy established the national objective of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely by the end of the decade. Apollo was the result of that effort.

External Links

Apollo Lunar Space Journal"Resource on the Apollo missions to the moon. Provides information on the crew and features audio and video clips, a photo gallery, and transcripts of conversations of the astronauts with the base. "